


These Wild Oceans Shake What’s Left Of Me Loose

by cloudedink



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Drinking to Cope, Everyone Needs A Hug, F/F, F/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), trigger warning panic attacks
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-03
Updated: 2019-06-15
Packaged: 2020-02-16 08:14:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18687610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cloudedink/pseuds/cloudedink
Summary: WARNING:  CONTAINS SPOILERS FROM AVENGERS: ENDGAMEThe whole time travel thing still messed with her head.  There could have been another way.  But it was in the past and the rest of her family was back, so she couldn’t risk it.  At least, not on her own.  The other Avengers, at least what was left of them, would not give in.  It would be “too risky and too selfish” for her to go back in time just to get her sister back.  It hurt, but she accepted it.  Gamora was gone.  She wasn’t coming back.DISCONTINUED FOR THE TIME BEING





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Just a slight TW for panic attacks. There's nothing too major, but there are minor panic attacks and also references to them. There's also some drinking but that's only really in the beginning.

        Nebula liked to sit by herself.  Most of the time. Sometimes she felt the need to get up and be around the others.  Part of her hated it. The other part, the part that grew and healed and gave her the strength to shoot her past self, did not mind it.  

        She often found herself emerged deep into thought, going through her memories of the five years between the decimation of half the universe and the events of Thanos’s all too quick death.  That was one of her bigger regrets. In both timelines Thanos died, but she wasn’t the one to do it. In the first she was too distracted by the fact that the stones were gone, and in the other, she was somewhere, probably with past Gamora and the other women fighters.

        Past Gamora was not there.  Nebula didn’t know what happened to her and quite frankly, she didn’t know if she wanted to.  Past Gamora could have gotten decimated with the rest of Thanos’s army, or she could have died in the fight.  Either scenarios were too painful to think about, so she just, didn’t. She didn’t wonder or hope that there was still some slim sliver of a possibility of her sister being back in her life.  And Nebula definitely did not focus on the metaphorical gaping hole in her chest that Gamora, her Gamora, the one she loved and grew close too, not the other one who could never truly replace her, had left behind when her Thanos ripped her away from Nebula’s life.  

        The whole time travel thing still messed with her head.  There could have been another way. But it was in the past and the rest of her family was back, so she couldn’t risk it.  At least, not on her own. The other Avengers, at least what was left of them, would not give in. It would be “too risky and too selfish” for her to go back in time just to get her sister back.  It hurt, but she accepted it. Gamora was gone. She wasn’t coming back.

        Nebula was glad, thankful even, that she had the others, but the group wasn’t the same as it was nine years prior.  She wished she was able to be as naive and hopeful as Peter, who searched each and everyday for any lead on where Gamora could possibly be if she was out there.  He was almost completely intolerable, but his loyalty and dedication to her sister Nebula admired. Perhaps that loyalty and love was why Gamora had fallen for him.  It was hard to believe, but to some degree it made sense.

        Rocket was pretty much normal.  Yeah, he still had some issues, but didn’t they all?  Mantis? Kind of fidgety, given everything that had happened.  The tree was always checking in with Peter, asking if he had found anything on Gamora, and then walking away with his head hung when Peter said no.   Nebula didn’t ever pay attention to Drax, so she didn’t know if he had changed or was the same obnoxious being he always was. Thor, well he was Thor.  The beer drinking had decreased, but Nebula still managed to occasionally steal a bottle, or five, from him when he wasn’t looking; not that the beer really had an affect on her, besides making her sleepy and upsetting her stomach a tiny bit.

       The silence was getting to be too much, and she had run out of things to distract her mind with.  Intrusive thoughts about Thanos and seeing herself from 2014 would start to manifest and that led to full on panic attacks and that was the last thing Nebula wanted to deal with in that given moment.  

       Her speed of breathing began to increase and her left arm started twitching.  She hit herself and tried to focus on slowing her breathing down. She glanced at the bag of metal triangles she kept by her bedside, and hastily grabbed it.  She rushed out to where everyone was, until she found who she was looking for.

       “Mantis,” she said, causing the girl to jump and drop the book she was reading.  

     “Please give me a warning next time,” she brushed her hair out of her face and picked up the book that had fallen in the floor.  

       If she wasn’t focused on clearing her mind and shutting down a panic attack, Nebula might have felt bad about accidentally startling Mantis.  “Sorry,” she muttered. She tossed the bag of triangles at Mantis. “I’m gonna show you how to play a game.”

       Mantis looked away and opened up the book she was reading.  “I’m not really in the mood right now. Maybe later.” Her voice was quieter than usual.  Something, probably Gamora’s absence, was on her mind as well.

   “Mantis, please,”  Nebula hated how desperate her voice sounded.  “It can distract us both.”

      Mantis glanced up at her before putting the book to the side.  She rubbed her eyes and grabbed the bag. “Okay,” her bottom lip wobbled as if she had been crying.   

      “Are you alright?”

       Mantis nodded.  “It’s just been exceedingly quiet around here now.  It reminds me of Ego’s planet.”

    “You aren’t there anymore.”  

     “And Thanos is dead.”  

     Nebula avoided Mantis’s gaze.  She was right; he was dead. Thanos had died twice.  She knew that. Pushing a past, and painful, memory to the back of her head, she murmured, “Yeah, I know that.  But his impact is still everywhere I go.”

     “You can’t change what he did,” she placed a hand on Nebula’s arm, which caused her to glance over at Mantis.  “But you can heal.”

      She made it sound so simple. It wasn’t Mantis’s fault that she didn’t understand the complexities of what Thanos had done.  Nebula was glad that she didn’t know. She wouldn’t wish the pain and trauma on anyone, except maybe Drax, but even that was pushing it.   Mantis also didn’t understand how it was basically impossible for Nebula to completely heal without Gamora being there.

     “Sure I can,” she said, trying to bite back the sarcasm that was building up.  From the look on Mantis’s face she seemed to be doing a good job at not letting sarcasm trickle into everything she said.  “Can we just go play now?”

     “Yeah.”  

      Nebula sat at one end of the table as Mantis sat at the other.  She opened the bag of triangles and dumped them out into a pile onto the table.  “Hold your hands like this,” she said as she demonstrated the goal-like position.  When Mantis didn’t seem to understand, Nebula leaned over the table, practically laying on top of it, and grabbed her hands, manually putting them into the position.   Mantis’s eyes lit up when she understood. Her mouth made a nonverbal “oh” motion.

     “Now you hold the triangle piece between your finger and the table.  Then you flick it.” The triangle soared effortlessly through the “goal” and Nebula sat back in the seat satisfied.  “Try it.”

      Nebula watched as Mantis struggled to hold the triangle piece correctly.  First she pinched it, then got frustrated when it wouldn’t move when she hit it.  Nebula rolled her eyes. Mantis then was holding it correctly, but it kept slipping and falling over before she could hit it.  “Keep trying, you’ll get it.”

     After what probably seemed like the hundredth time to Mantis (it was really only seventeen) she hit it and it moved, about halfway across the table, but it moved nonetheless.  “Better. You’ll get it.”

    “I know,” she nodded.  Determination was all over her face as she kept hitting the triangles.   

     When the triangle did eventually go through the “goal” a wide grin spread on Mantis’s face, causing a weight to drop onto Nebula’s chest.  “There. I did it.”

     Nebula smiled softly.  “Yeah, you did…” her voice trailed off.  It was getting increasingly harder to breathe.  Mantis’s proud grin reminded her of when she had first scored a goal, back when she was playing this game with Tony.  It was one of the seldom times in her life she had actually felt happy, and now he was dead and the grief hit her like a freight train.

     “Are you okay, Nebula?”  She glanced up and saw that the determination in Mantis’s eyes had been replaced with concern.  

     She couldn’t bring herself to speak, couldn’t even open her mouth without the impending threat of grief to wash over her and expose itself.  Nebula just nodded her head and got up, walking out of the room. Slamming her door shut, she staggered to her bed and collapsed onto it. She grabbed one of the already opened and half-drunk bottles that she kept under her bed and tipped the remaining contents into her mouth.  It wouldn’t make her forget, but it could possibly numb the emotional pain under the physical discomfort that an upset stomach brings. Nebula had downed two more bottles, both full this time, before Mantis burst into her room.

     “Do you mind?” Nebula yelled as she drank from what was now her fourth bottle.  

     “You’re being odd.”  Mantis held her hands out awkwardly in front of her.  It seemed to be her default stance and at the moment, it made Nebula want to reach out and break her arms.  

    “Stop standing like that,” she snapped.  

    “Like what?”  

     “Like, _that_.” Nebula gestured to her arms.

      “Oh?”  

     “Just stop it,” she said through gritted teeth.

      Mantis dropped her arms to her side and walked closer to Nebula.  She picked up one of the empty bottles and studied it. “Give that back!”  Nebula swiped the bottle out of her hand and tossed it to the side, causing Mantis to wince when the bottle fell off the bed and shattered on the ground.  “Get over it,” she growled, “it’s just a bottle.”

      Nebula tried to feel bad when Mantis stepped back, the pain on her face as clear as day, and returned to her default position of her hands held in front of her.  She avoided Nebula’s gaze, instead stared at the small pile of laundry that Nebula had.

      Suddenly blinding pain flooded Nebula’s head, causing her to momentarily lose her sight.  Yelping in pain, she clutched at her cybernetic eye. Panic flooded through her. Were her systems failing, or was there another Nebula who somehow managed to jump into their timeline?  Her entire head felt like it was on fire; even her high pain tolerance wasn’t enough for this.

   “You okay?”  

    “Yeah,” she groaned.  “Yeah. I’m good.” Nebula squeezed her eyes shut in attempt to ease the pain.  It only made it worse. She smacked the side of her head a few times. A message began to sputter for a few time before materializing in front of her.  Nebula’s eyes widened.

    “Is that?” Mantis gasped.  

    “Gamora?”  Nebula foolishly reached out in front of her, as if she could actually touch Gamora.  Her hand dropped when she realized how stupid she was being.

     “Whoever’s getting this, if anyone is getting this, I don’t know where I am. It’s cold and lonely I just want to go home.”  The desperation in Gamora’s voice made Nebula’s heart sink to her stomach. The message faded away and Nebula set the bottle that she forgot she was holding down.  

    “Is that recent?”   Mantis said.

    “Yeah… It just came through.”  Nebula glanced over at her.

    “You are sure that it is not fake?”  

    “Yes.  Gamora was one of four who could message me through that way.”  The others were the Guardians and (despite what she wanted) Thanos, as well as any version of herself from the past or future, except it was just memories that played, rather than actual messages.  After the time-travel incident, every time that method of contact was used it hurt her.

    “That means-”  

    “My sister is alive.  Wait, she’s alive…” The reality of the situation hit her.  Gamora, who she was convinced was dead, was alive.

     “Are you okay?”  Mantis lightly rested her hand on Nebula’s shoulder.  

     “No.  No I’m really not,” Nebula quivered.  

     “Do you need to sit down?”

      Nebula shakily nodded and allowed Mantis to help her sit.  

     “Nebula, you need to breathe.”

      Nebula blinked a few times to try and fix her now blurry vision.  Nothing helped. She couldn’t smack her head again because her arms felt like they were being weighed down by shackles.  

_Cybernetics failing.  Systems shutting down._

      Then she heard Mantis frantically yelling her name.  

 


	2. Chapter 2

“Hey.  Hey, Nebula?  Can you hear me?”  

Nebula slowly opened her eyes.  Everything was fuzzy and disoriented.  As things came into focus, she could see Mantis worriedly leaning over her.  Nebula blinked a few times and rubbed her eyes. “What happened?”

Mantis sighed in relief.  “I think you passed out.”

“Oh god,” she groaned.  Nebula rolled onto her side so that she wouldn’t have to look Mantis in the eyes after what had just happened.  It was getting easier to trust people and accept help, but every now and then, those old defense mechanisms and shields of trying to avoid any help resurfaced.  This was one of those times. “Does anyone else know?”

“I called Peter over but he probably just shrugged it off.  He doesn’t take anything seriously when I’m the one talking about it.”

Nebula glanced over at Mantis to see her looking down at her hands in her lap.  Then she turned away and stared at the blanket that was lying next to her on the bed.  “Well Quill is an idiot.”

“Yeah,” she sighed.  “I just wish they would take me seriously.  I have valid ideas too you know.”

Nebula slowly sat up, hoping that her mods would take care of any side effects of the passing out, and tilted her head.  “Why do you act the way you do? There’s no possible way you’re actually this innocent and naive.”

“It’s a mask,” she said.

“Ah.”

“They expect me to act this way so I do.  Any of my problems they don’t take seriously, so I do not talk about them.  Plus I can tell when I am making someone uncomfortable, and Ego would punish me if I did that.  It would make it harder for him to manipulate his children if I couldn’t gain their trust.”

Nebula didn’t ask her to go into detail.  She would hate it if someone had told her to go into detail of all the ways Thanos hurt and manipulated and punished her growing up.  She assumed Mantis felt the same way about her abuse and trauma.

The awkward and uncomfortable silence was broken by none other than Peter Quill bursting into the room.  

“God can’t any of you guys knock?” Nebula exclaimed.  “What ever happened to privacy?”

“You wouldn’t have knocked if it was,” he paused, took a deep breath, and clenched and unclenched his fists.  “If _she_ had called you with terror and worry in her voice.”  

“Yeah, I would’ve.”  

“Well you can’t be certain.”  

“Guys!” Mantis snapped.  “This argument between you two can wait.”  

“Not now,” Peter held up a hand as if trying to silence her.  Which only caused Mantis to look down at her lap and retreat back into silence.

“No she’s right,” Nebula said, causing Mantis to glance up at her.   “There are more important issues at hand.”

“Well you better get to explaining them because I have to go back to looking for her.  I’m surprised you aren’t focused on the same thing.”

Had it not have been for the recent message she had received from Gamora, Nebula probably, in her frustration and grief, would have yelled something along to lines of ‘Gamora’s gone,’ or ‘Just give up already, you aren’t going to find her.’  But that would have resulted in another fight, one the probably would’ve gotten physical. Not that it would have mattered, Nebula could easily wipe the floor with Peter, they both knew it.

“That’s the thing,”  Nebula said quietly. “I think I know where she is.”  

Any smirk or look of annoyance was wiped clean off of Peter’s face.  “What? Where?”

Nebula swallowed back the possible flashback to Thanos’s ship that was building up.  “Vormir,” she whispered. “I think she’s on Vormir.” She gripped onto the blanket next to her and took a shaky breath.  The last thing she ever heard her Gamora say, until recently anyways, was that damned planet’s name. She wouldn’t have even revealed it had it not been for Nebula screaming in pain from Thanos torturing her.  And then she was back there, hanging from the invisible wires, every part of her spread out, immobilized. Gamora’s hand on her face, Thanos pulling her apart, and then Titan, where she figured out that Thanos had murdered Gamora, right when they were both out of his clutches.  

Nebula felt a hand on her knee, which caused her to return to reality.  She glanced up to see Mantis looking at her. Her facial expression read, ‘Are you okay?’  Nebula nodded.

“As in-” Peter started.  

“Yes,” Mantis answered so Nebula wouldn’t have to.  She was grateful for that. “Can you tell the others and come up with a plan?  We will be out in a bit.”

“Yes.  Yes yes.”  Peter’s eyes lit up and he ran out of the room yelling “Guys she’s alive!”  It was actually pretty sweet.

When Quill was out of earshot, Nebula looked over at Mantis.  “Thank you,” she said quietly. “I don’t know why I suddenly froze up.  That hasn’t happened before.”

“I cannot feel them clearly, but I can sense the chaos in your emotions.  I suspect that they could be a factor in why you froze up.”

She could almost feel 2014 Nebula’s knife at her throat.  The words “you disgust me” rang clearly through her ears. The disappointment that was in the voice of her past self spread over her like scorching hot lava.   _Weak, pathetic child._ Thanos’s voice.  

Nebula stood up and started walking to the other side of the room.  She just needed to get up and distract her brain again. Then everything would straighten itself out and she wouldn’t be feeling the way she did.  

“It’s alright that you feel that way you know.”  

Nebula knew Mantis was trying to be helpful, that’s all she ever did.  She just tried to help, over and over again. “Can you like, turn off your sensing of my emotions or does it just happen?”  

“It just happens,” she said.  Mantis stood in front of her, wonder and awe on her face.  “Do you trust me?”

Everything inside of her was screaming at her to say no, to refuse any possible help Mantis could offer her.  Mantis had helped her far too much already. She didn’t need this much help from others. But that was her old self, her pre-decimation self, so Nebula pushed past those thoughts, and nodded her head.  

She flinched slightly as Mantis gently placed a hand on her face, right under her cybernetic eye.  “Sorry,” she muttered.

“Do not apologize.  I understand.”

Mantis closed her eyes and her antenna lit up.  Gradually, all the fear and grief and anxiety separated itself from Nebula, leaving her with nothing but a calmness she hadn’t felt since before everything, since before the first surgery Thanos had put her under.  It felt unnatural, almost too good to be real, as if it too could suddenly be snatched away from her.

When she opened her eyes, Mantis smiled at her.  “Is that better?”

“Better is not the word I would use to describe this.   But it is not repulsive.”

“I’ll take it.”  

“Thank you, again.”  

“Of course.”

Nebula just stared at her.  Neither said anything, they just looked at each other.  Nebula’s advanced hearing picked up how fast Mantis’s heart was beating.  Nebula pretended to ignore it, as well as how fast her own heart was beating.  

Mantis finally broke the silence.  “Should we, um…”

“Go see how the plan is going?  Yeah good idea,” Nebula quickly said.  

Speak of the devil, Peter Quill came running into the room.  “We have a plan! Hurry, _please.”_

It occurred to Nebula then, that even though Quill sometimes (most of the time) got on her nerves, and she sometimes wondered how on earth her sister could fall for such an oafish man-child, he truly did love Gamora.  She realized that maybe she wasn’t the only person on the ship who needed Gamora, the glue that held them together. It occurred, that perhaps, Gamora was like a lifeline, the very heartbeat in Quill’s chest, the very light that burned so brightly in his eyes and manifested itself in his overly bubbly personality.  Nebula realized she wasn’t the only person who felt as though Gamora’s loss was like a dull knife getting rammed into her heart.

“Okay,” Nebula finally said.  “But before we do,” she leaned against the wall with one foot also leaning against it and crossed her arms.  “Let’s make one thing clear.”

“Okay…”

“I am going to be the one that goes on Vormir and finds her.”  

Quill’s face contorted in confusion and disbelief.  “Um, no? _I’m_ the one who’s going to go find her.  She’s my girlfriend.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”  

“I love her?”  

“And you think I don’t?”  Nebula snapped. She jumped off of the wall and pointed a small knife at Quill’s throat.  “She is _my sister_. I love Gamora more than anyone else on this ship, including you.”  Nebula continued speaking even after Quill opened his mouth to try and prove that he loved Gamora more.  “You did not have to live for five years without her, okay? I’m going out there for her and that’s final.”   

“I mean, I still love her more-” he flinched when Nebula actually touched the tip of the knife to his throat.

“Finish that sentence,” she growled.  “I dare you.”

“Nevermind,” he gasped, trying to (unsuccessfully) put distance between himself and the knife.  

“That’s what I thought,” Nebula said as she lowered the knife and tossed it over to her night table.  “Now let’s go get Gamora, okay?”

“Okay.”

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry that the chapter is shorter than planned. School's been kicking my butt but I am out in two weeks which means that soon I'll be able to write more and update more consistently. Anyways thank you for reading and possibly comment or leave kudos?? :)
> 
> I will try to have the next chapter up by Friday.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, long time no see. Sorry about that. 
> 
> A few things to take into consideration:  
> I have moved the update days to Saturday.  
> For now, the chapters will be shorter than originally planned.  
> I am moving in and out of writer's block, and still struggling to calm down from the stresses of school, so please bear with me when updates are slow, like these past few weeks. 
> 
> That is all :)
> 
> Now back to our regularly scheduled angst.

Orange.  The color of the sunsets on Terra according to Peter.  The color of the front side of The Milano before it was destroyed on Berhert.  Orange. The color of the fire that was contained in the caverns underneath the surface of Ego’s planet.  The color of Peter’s headphones that he slipped over her head that one night on Knowhere. 

Orange.  The color of the Soul Stone, of the Soul Realm.  The color that Gamora once associated with warmth now reminded her only of cold.    It reminded her of coldness and emptiness and being utterly and completely alone, with nothing but the phantom of Thanos’s iron-tight grip on her wrist to keep her company.  

There were others in the Realm, she could sense them, feel them even.  Gamora couldn’t see them but she knew they were there. 

And then, out of nowhere, another soul, a new presence, new person, she could feel.  This time though, their presence was different. 

Gamora stood up and despite pulling her jacket around her tighter, the cold still stung her like a thousand microscopic needles poking her skin all at once, over and over and over again.  She glanced around, dread rippling through her as she felt the power surge through the atmosphere, through her very soul which was connected to this stone. It was not as painful and breathtaking as when Thanos used the stone to decimate half of the universe, but it still caused her to stumble back and need to catch her breath as it felt like a part of her was being stabbed.  

Gamora glanced around, refusing to cry, refusing to acknowledge how the possibility of her being able to see, touch another person.  The possibility made her want to break down and cry for more reasons than one. The knowledge that there were other souls in the realm, but she couldn’t interact with them, that she was in a sense alone and would be for all of eternity, it crushed her.  She had spent so much time in isolation, with the only interactions she had be Thanos and her siblings. 

Was Nebula okay?  Gamora hoped so. She prayed that Nebula had survived and wasn’t stuck here as well.  What about the Guardians? Peter? 

_ No. _  She smacked her arm.  There were other things to focus on.  Gamora needed to focus, needed to make sure that there was actually someone else here rather than her own desperation and loneliness playing tricks on her again. 

“Hey?” 

Gamora whipped around, reaching for her sword but then remembering that she didn’t have it and feeling even more defeated than she already did.  The voice belonged to someone, the person whose presence she felt, the person who, she now saw was a woman with long red hair and with blonde tips at the end that was pulled into a braid.   “You must be Gamora,” the woman said. 

“How do you know my name?” Gamora said shakily. 

“Nebula talked about you, not often, but when she did she could only talk for a little while before getting choked up and running out of the room.”  

Gamora’s heart sunk as guilt spread through her.  “How is she?” 

“Coping, I think.  We all have. She’s changed a lot in the five years I’ve known her though.  When she first came to earth she was more stab everyone with hatred for Thanos filling her to the bones.” 

Gamora slightly smiled.  “That sounds like her. Anyways,” the smile fell, ''Who are you?” Her voice got quiet.  “How did you get here?”

“Oh,” the woman said.  “I’m Natasha. Natasha Romanoff.”  Natasha glanced around. “So this is the soul stone, huh?  Seems lonely.”

“It is.”  Gamora sat on a rock-like structure that she was pretty sure she created some how.  

“At least he’s gonna get his family back, maybe that will make this soon-to-be eternal loneliness tolerable.”  

“He as in a lover?”  Gamora asked. If she was going to be with this woman forever, she should at least get to know her some.  

“No,” Natasha chuckled.  “We weren’t lovers. Not in the slightest.  He is, was, my best friend.” She looked over in Gamora’s direction, a sad but at the same time, happy look gleamed in her eyes.  “His name was Clint. In order to get the stone so we can undo Thanos’s snap, I sacrificed myself so he wouldn’t have to. I don’t regret it at all.  If the plan succeeds, then he gets his wife and three kids back. I know he’s going to be upset about me doing it, but I couldn’t just stand there and watch as three kids who I looked after like my own lose their father.  If I did that, what kind of person would I be?”

“I admire that,” Gamora finally said.  “Sacrificing yourself in the name of family, it’s what I would have done had Thanos not acquired the Reality Stone before, before he,” she took a deep breath and shook her head, glancing at her feet.  “Before he, you know.” 

“Yeah…”  

“I hope your plan succeeds.  I would like to see the stones used for good, not for genocide.  I just wish I could be there to see  _ my family _ and hold them all.”  Gamora played with the rings on her fingers, and despite using all of her self control, she still stared at her ring finger on her left hand, which had been empty ever since Peter had mentioned that that was where Terran wedding rings would traditionally go.  She kept it empty out of hope that eventually he would give her rings that had more meaning than her decorative ones. It never happened, never would now, and it crushed her. 

“What if you could?”  Natasha said, causing Gamora to snap her head up. 

“But I can’t.  I’m dead, my soul is here now.”  

“No, mine is.  You controlled the stone from two-thousand-eighteen.”

“That’s not true,”  Gamora shook her head.  She was not going back home, it wasn’t possible.  As much as she’d like to believe it, it wasn’t.

“Gamora,” Natasha grabbed her by the biceps.  “Listen to me.” Gamora hesitantly looked up at her.  “You are going home. You didn’t choose to be here, I did.  You’re going home, Nebula and the others are waiting for you.”  

Tears pricked in her eyes.  “Natasha stop,” her voice caught on a sob. “You’re trying to give  me false hope.” 

“There’s nothing false about this.  Now go home.” 

As suddenly as Natasha appeared, she, and the orange of the soul realm vanished.  The cold was still there, but the atmosphere had changed. Gamora was sprawled out on her back, staring at the night sky, light snow falling around her.  She sat up and pressed a hand to her temple as her head spazzed in pain. Glancing up, she flinched as she realized where she was. 

“Vormir,” she whispered.  “Shit.” 

Gamora stood up and started her trek, there had to be some way off of this damned planet.  

***

It was hopeless.  There was no way off of this planet, not without a ship, and this planet was entirely vacant, no civilization in sight.  

Sighing in defeat, Gamora brushed some snow off of a rock and sat on it.  This was almost worse than being in the soul stone. At least in the stone, Gamora could sense other living, breathing, feeling, people.  Here on Vormir, all she could sense was the cold and a dark omen that was probably the result of Thanos murdering her. 

She rummaged through her pockets in hope of finding something, anything that could help her.  When she found something, a com that somehow survived the fall, like her initially, she almost screamed out of joy and relief.  She pressed the buttons and commed the only person who she knew was alive, thanks to Natasha. 

But what if Nebula wasn’t actually alive?  What if she changed her method of communication and this message would get to some random person?  Whatever, she was desperate, so she turned the settings to visual message and began recording. 

“Whoever’s getting this, if anyone is getting this, I don’t know where I am. It’s cold and lonely I just want to go home.”  Gamora went to take a breath to continue, to mention that she knew at least that she was on Vormir, but static and then silence came from the com, and she realized that it had died.  

If anyone but Nebula received the message, then her getting rescued was hopeless.  Gamora knew she would die from hypothermia or starvation before anyone else would really figure out where she was.  “Damnit.” She muttered. Her fate, as much as she hated it, completely depended on whether or not a comm’s signal could get from one galaxy to the next, and her sister being the one to receive it.  The odds were not stacked in her favor, and Gamora kind of wished she had just convinced Natasha to let her stay in the Soul Realm. 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Endgame hurt me so I basically said "Screw that ending, I'm doing my own thing." within reason. As nice as it would be to bring Tony back, I haven't figured out the logistics as to how they could realistically bring him back. 
> 
> Anyways please leave a nice comment and a kudos. :)


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